Wolf, Dionne Lead No. 4 Duke Past BU in Regular Season Finale

BOSTON – The Boston University lacrosse program concluded its inaugural season against No. 3 Duke, and despite a career-high 25 saves from freshman Christian Carson-Banister, the Terriers dropped a 16-11 decision to the 2013 national champion on Sunday afternoon at Nickerson Field.

BU finished its first varsity season at 2-12, with both wins coming in Patriot League play. The Blue Devils improved to 13-3 and will play in the NCAA tournament. The Terriers continued a trend of playing ranked opponents tough at home, as they lost their three games to current top-20 teams this season by only a combined nine goals.

Carson-Banister was terrific in the cage, as he stopped 25 shots, an NCAA single-game high in 2014. His previous career high was 16 saves. Carson-Banister made eight saves in the first quarter and helped keep the Terriers within no more than five goals throughout the contest.

Three seniors - Kyle Lange, Emerson Rogers and Brad Sauln - were honored before the game. They are the first graduating class in program history. Both Lange and Sauln played on Sunday, while Rogers was sidelined with an injury. All three will receive their degrees later this month.

Freshman Sam Talkow had a terrific day at the X, winning a career-best 16 faceoffs and leading the Terriers with a career-high three goals. Classmates Ryan Johnston and Clay Phillips each tallied twice, while sophomore Sammy Davis also had two goals. Freshman Adam Schaal matched a program record with four assists while classmate Cal Dearth recorded a pair of assists. Redshirt freshman Sam Tenney and freshman Chad Bell each found the back of the net and freshman Craig Zebrowski provided an assist.

On defense, freshman Greg Wozniak had another strong performance, as he led the team with three caused turnovers and also collected five ground balls. Talkow led both teams with 11 ground balls, one shy of his career high. BU was edged by just one, 33-32 in the ground-ball battle, and held Duke to 0 for 5 on extra-man opportunities.

Talkow electrified the home crowd right from the opening whistle. He won the first faceoff and raced into the Duke zone before ripping a shot top corner to give the Terriers a 1-0 lead just six seconds into the proceedings. Both teams traded possessions before Johnston put the Terriers ahead, 2-0, at the 9:54 mark thanks to an assist from Death.

Duke scored the next four goals of the quarter, but Schaal fed Tenney for the redshirt freshman's 16th goal of the season to make it a 4-3 game after 15 minutes. The Blue Devils began the second stanza with three consecutive goals before Johnston and Davis each scored to cut the Duke lead to 7-5 with 6:39 to play in the half. Duke deposited two more goals before halftime, however, to take a 9-5 lead into the break.

The Terriers scored two of the first three third-quarter goals, as Phillips and Talkow got on the board six seconds apart to chase Duke goalkeeper Luke Aaron (four saves) from the contest in favor of Kyle Turri (six saves). After a Blue Devil goal made it an 11-7 game, Phillips and Talkow again combined to score two straight, the second of which completed Talkow's hat trick and cut the Duke advantage to 11-9.

That was as close as the Terriers got, however, as Josh Dionne rattled off three straight tallies to give the Blue Devils a 14-9 lead. Davis and Bell each scored to bring BU within three at 14-11 with 3:43 remaining in regulation, but the Blue Devils sealed the game with two goals.

* * * *

BOSTON-Duke senior attackmen Josh Dionne and Jordan Wolf combined for 14 points on nine goals and five assists to lead the Blue Devils to a 16-11 victory over Boston University in the regular season finale at Nickerson Field.